Coming off a solid sixth place finish at The Milwaukee Mile, Stacy Compton entered Memphis Motorsports Park for the MemphisTravel.com 200 on Saturday with confidence on his side. Compton had always run strong at the 0.75-mile oval and he knew he had a solid shot at finishing in the top-five. But a miscommunication on pit road left Compton singing the blues after 200 laps at the "Home of the Blues" and in the "Birthplace of Rock and Roll".
"It was a tough weekend," said Compton. "In all honesty, we had a good truck. I made a mistake, I thought the Crew Chief said one thing - I thought he said "don't pit" - and he said "pit". That cost us a top-10 finish. We were sitting there running sixth. I told Marcus (Richmond, Crew Chief) that it's good that I believe in him enough to stay out when I knew we had to come back in. But one reason why Marcus is such a good Crew Chief is because he makes good calls. He throws some strategy out there sometimes that is a little bit out of the box. That's one reason that we've had some of the finishes that we've had because we've had good pit calls. I thought he said "stay out". I thought he said "don't pit" and I stayed out. It cost us probably a top-seven finish."
Although Compton had a top-10 truck, the miscommunication on pit road resulted in a 17th place finish. "It's pretty frustrating because we were so good in first practice," Compton explained. "We had some fuel pump problems in the second practice and didn't quite get enough practice. But I just made a mistake. I take all the blame this weekend because I certainly thought he said stay out and I just didn't hear him right. That cost us a good finish."
Compton's SafeAuto Toyota was strong from the time the team unloaded. "We were top of the board in first practice for a lot of the practice until a couple of guys went out and made qualifying runs," Compton continued. "We unloaded good. We've done that the last couple of weeks. We unloaded fast up in Milwaukee. We unloaded fast at Memphis. We were sitting there running in the top-10 the whole first run. We came down pit road and had a little issue in the pits and lost a couple of spots, but it wasn't anything to worry about. We still felt like we had a top-five truck."
Despite the disappointing finish, Compton is looking forward to the rest of the year. "I'm excited about how the team is growing and how good we're getting week in and week out," Compton said. "We just need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. We don't have any more mulligans."
Compton and his SafeAuto team will enjoy two weeks off before returning to action at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday, July 18th for the running of the Built Ford Tough 225 presented by the Greater Cincinnati Ford Dealers.
